Many sites I look have pretty dull home pages.

If your site sells stuff then you want to hit people hard and fast with the right information that influences their choice.

This information includes:

1. Key benefit in buying from you
2. Key difference to the competition

Reduce the perceived sense of risk in buying from you with the use of:

1. Testimonials
2. Guarantees

A Neat Example

The sales page for my Web Design Business Kit is a great example of this;

• You’ll read a bit about me that establishes my credibility
• There’s sample chapters you can download and read
• You’ll notice testimonials on the side of the page and the hundreds here?
• Then there’s the 100% Money Back Guarantee graphic on the right and further explanation here.
• Not to mention the “Why Order from SitePoint” link on the right.

All done to establish trust and belief in the book and remove the risk of buying it (it’s a great 100% Money Back Guarantee).

Benchmarking Avoids The Hard Yards

Benchmarking against sales pages like that one are a great way to improve your own page.

What can you do on your web site to make it more attractive to potential buyers?

Cheers

Brendon

If you’re not subscribed to Tailored News (you can by sticking your email address in the field top right of this page – it’s 100% free) then odds are your certifiably insane.

And yes, that’s a medical opinion from me ;o)

I’ve just sent out the latest edition titled “Marketing Disaster – $320 Per Night to Be Slagged Off!”

Tailored News June 2010

Newsletter & Blog Archives

I also have a bunch of old newsletters here.

And don’t forget you can check out over 7 years of Tailored blogs here.

If you don’t want to read 7 years worth right now ;o), you might like my 3 most popular posts ever:

1. How Miss Spinks Taught Me Everything I Ever Needed To Know About Customer Service At 8 Years Of Age
2. 8 Lessons I Learned From A Hooker
3. The No BS Way To Get A Job

Cheers

Brendon

One of our long term clients of ours (they’ve been with us for 10 or so years) have had 3 different web sites with us, all in the same industry.

2 of those sites have been very successful and the latest site was developed based on twhat worked with the previous 2 web sites.

But this web site ain’t doing so good.  The client is not making half as many sales as the previous sites.

So, what to do?

Well, doing something, anything is a great start.

What we do is implement a strategy and measure the impact of that strategy.  The strategy could be any 1 of 50 we might try, but being a bit more experienced at developing web sites that work we have a fair idea of what to do first.

The First 3 Steps

Our first step is checking out all is working on the a site.  We then progress to taking some baseline statistics.

Our 3rd step is an important one – it’s where we start taking some action.

What we’re doing with this web site – and have been doing for the past 2 weeks – is buying tons of traffic via Google AdWords.

What this gives us is data – just more information to help us ascertain what is happening with the web site.

If the doubling of visitor numbers (as long as they’re genuinely interested visitors) results in not many sales, then we know the web site isn’t converting very well for some reason.

Right Information To Make The Right Decisions

You see, developing a web site that works is all about getting the right information so you can make the right decision.

If your web site isn’t working so well, take action and measure the results.

Take another action and measure the results.

Keep doing what works.

Stop doing what doesn’t work.

Cheers

Brendon

A few weeks back talented web developer John O’Nolan reviewed my Web Design Business Kit (worth having a look at just for the photos!).

John sent through some interview questions last week and I typed up my answers.

Because some people prefer to read and some people prefer to watch a video I also videoed my answers to the questions and sent that through to John too.

John has just put the full interview up on his web site, along with the video interview in 2 parts.

The Apology is This

Apologies for putting you through the video of my enormous head filling the screen for so long!

But You Can Win Stuff!

Just to make it fair, if you take a look at the interview and do a small thing John asks for at the end you can win “…..not one, not two, but three SitePoint books to the readers of this blog, and winning them couldn’t be easier.”

Here’s the first part of the interview.  For more jump on over to John’s site for the video and the text answers (the text answers aren’t just a transcript of the video, I wrote the text answers first and then filmed the video cold).

Visit John’s site for the full interview.

Cheers

Brendon

This post is about how to get a decent ranking in Google for a term you want – it’s not comprehensive, but it will do the job.

I was looking at wedding photographs by Hailey Bartholomew earlier and that’s still top of mind, so let’s target a term Hailey would want (I think – I haven’t actually asked).

Hailey’s a wonderful wedding photographer in Brisbane (an Australian city).  Mmmmm, I wonder what terms people would use to search for a wedding photographer?

Okay, first we need to understand that you can really only get a good ranking for 1 term per page (not always, but generally).

So let’s go over to Google and use this tool:

Google’s Keyword Tool

We pop in a few terms that spring to mind

• wedding photographer
• wedding photographers
• wedding photographer brisbane
• wedding photographers brisbane
• brisbane wedding photographer
• brisbane wedding photographers

and we get a pretty good idea of what relevant terms get searched for the most.

As you can see, “photography brisbane” and “brisbane photographers” get the most searches.

But they don’t interest me – I’m specifically targeting people who are after a wedding photographer in Brisbane: I’ve bolded my 2 favourites:

• wedding photography brisbane
• wedding photographer brisbane

Whilst “wedding photography brisbane” gets more searches (1,900 to 1,300), I prefer the term “wedding photographer brisbane”.

My gut tells me it will get better qualified searchers that the term “wedding photographer brisbane”.

(I won’t bother checking out the competition to any degree, my quick look of 60 secs tells me it’s a pretty competitive term.

Even though this web site has nothing to do with wedding photography and I have no links to it to do with that term, it will still get a nice ranking – I’d guess about # 14 within a few hours.  If I got links to this page then I’d end up # 2-4 within a week or 2.

Best Wedding Photographer Brisbane

So what’s next for this page to get a higher ranking for “wedding photographer Brisbane”?

Nothing really.  The term is mentioned on the page a few times.

I’ve made the title tag say “Wedding Photographer Brisbane – Check out You Can’t Be Serious”.

(Google will look at the title tag for a clue on what the page is about.)

Meta Description

Our meta description (this is a bit in the code) says “Looking for a wedding photographer in Brisbane – don’t get fooled just because they have a high ranking.  Check out our recommended wedding photographer in Brisbane for amazing memories”.

This is more to entice the searcher to click on us, more than anything else.

We always add what’s called a meta keyword – it is essentially useless, but it reminds me what we optimised the page for originally when I look back ina year or 2.

That’s most of what you can do on the page.

The Important Bit

Now remember that Google gets a ton of web sites that have done what we have to get a ranking for “wedding photographer Brisbane”.

So how can they tell which one is best?

Well, they can’t of course…..so they guess based on a few indicators.

So think what they might be.

• Links from other sites – if one web page has tons of links coming to it and another site has just 2, then Google looks and says “Wow, that one with al the links must be better – we’ll rank it higher.”
• Updated frequently – it makes sense to me that Google will rank fresh sites higher than sites that haven’t been updated for a year.
• Type of content added – again, I’d think that a better site would have a bit of video, maybe audio.  So it might pay to put some video on your site.  I’d put some of my photos in a YouTube video and title it “wedding Photographer Brisbane”.

The most important bit of all that is that links coming to your page about “wedding photographer Brisbane” should use the words “wedding photographer Brisbane” to link to the page.  That’s really useful for Google.

If you have a wedding photography business in Brisbane, I’d suggest just keep adding great content.

1. Add Twitter to your site
2. Write articles on how you get such great shots – add to your site and/or submit them to article sites
3. Do some video

To get an idea of Hailey’s amazing eye, check out her video below.

What warms your soul? from hailey bartholomew on Vimeo.

Great content attracts great quality links.

And all that tells Google your site is best.  And it will rank you as if you are.

The Best Wedding Photographer In Brisbane

Check out Hailey’s amazing wedding photos and more at her site: You Can’t Be Serious.

Seriously beautiful shots for the happy couple to cherish forever.

Any questions?  Use the comment thing below and they shall be answered with haste!

Cheers

Brendon

Want to run a marathon (or 100 km) with a difference?  Heard of the Antarctic Ice Marathon?

A brilliant race that markets itself.

Why?

Because it’s so different and chat worthy that guys like me will blog about it, other people will talk about and journalists will write about it.  Easy.

I’d guess the race organisers wouldn’t spend a cent on advertising.  It’ll all be done for them.

Having a product or service or story that is so extraordinary that people will talk about it is the perfect marketing strategy.

What can you do to get talked about?

Cheers

Brendon

Here’s a simple idea I mention in my Web Design Business Kit and one we can all easily use.

When you’re proposal gets rejected (and after you’ve done the “Why Not?” strategy) the very next thing you do is something very few people do.

Say “Thanks for rejecting me.”

Yep, as soon as you return to your office/home/lair shoot off a “Thanks for the opportunity of presenting our proposal letter.”

After all, the prospect was nice enough to give you a chance.

“Dear Bob

Thanks very much for the opportunity to present our proposal.

Whilst we’re disappointed at not working with you, I know how difficult it can be to figure out the best solution for your needs.

I’m sure XYZ Company will do a terrific job and that the site will provide you with the tremendous benefits we know it can.

All the best and take care.

Regards

Me”

You send that letter for 2 main reasons:

1. it’s good manners
2. you’ve positioned yourself for future work

Did you notice in the letter how you very subtly mentioned that you’re sure the site “will provide you with the tremendous benefits we know it can.”

If the site doesn’t perform well then you’ll be first on the list of people to contact because you’ve acted professionally and are top of mind.

Not Every Web Designer Is Suited To Their Client

Not every web designer will be well suited for their client. Clients do change their mind, things do go wrong, clients do reconsider.

With a quick and simple letter you’ve positioned yourself as professional, caring and willing to help (which is what you are of course).

Easy.

Cheers

Brendon

P.S: For more ideas like this check out the Web Design Business Kit (comes with sample letters like the one above).

Check out the Q-Ride site.

You know people who act before they think?

I’m kind of like that.

I don’t think too much before I act. I certainly don’t analyse things for days. Make quick decisions and act.

Sure, I’m wrong some of the time. But the benefits of acting (and being wrong some of the time) far outweigh the benefit of not doing anything.

Here’s how to get your very first web design client.

1. Check out web sites of local businesses
2. Find ones you think you can improve
3. Call the web site owner up and say “I can get your web site to make more money.”

Your aim with the call is to get a meeting. Once you have a meeting you make your offer. Easy.

It’s so easy that no one ever believes it can work. But it does.

Sure, you’ll get knock backs. But from every 100 calls you’ll make you’ll get at least 5 meetings.

Go get ‘em.

Chers

Brendon